First “Serious” FT8 Contest this Weekend

11/26/2018

A fifth “candidate release” — or beta version — of WSJT-X 2.0 now is available for download and use by beta testers. WSJT-X Developer Joe Taylor, K1JT, says WSJT-X 2.0-rc5 is stable, works well, and fixes kno+wn problems in RC4, the most-recent beta version released in mid-November.

“It is likely that the General Availability (GA) release of WSJT-X 2.0, scheduled for 2 weeks from today, will be nearly identical to RC5,” Taylor said on November 26. He also announced that a final FT8 “practice contest” would take place on Saturday, December 1, 0200 – 0300 UTC (Friday evening, November 30 in North American time zones).

The first “serious” FT8 contest — the FT8 Roundup — is set for the December 1 – 2 weekend. In the brand-new operating event, radio amateurs worldwide will contact and exchange information with other amateurs using FT8 on 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters. Any station may work any other station. The exchange is signal report and state/province for US and Canadian participants. Non-US/VE stations will transmit a signal report and consecutive serial number starting with 001.

Taylor also noted that the ARRL RTTY Roundup January 5 – 6 will, for the first time, permit the use of FT8 as well as traditional RTTY.